About 55% of homes in Coaldale were built before 1991, which is a lower share than any of the neighbouring towns and higher than any suburb of a city. That number is the most useful thing on this page, because it says this town is two housing stocks of roughly equal size sitting beside each other, and they need opposite work. Before anything is quoted we need to know which one your house belongs to.
Half of this town, and the other half
The older half is the grid near the tracks and the highway: small footprints, shallow walls, a cellar or a part crawl under part of the house, and an addition or two that each arrived with their own roof. On those houses the envelope has to be assembled rather than improved. There is no continuous air barrier to repair because there never was one.
The other half went up as the town kept absorbing people who work in the city and wanted a yard. Those houses were framed deeper, insulated to a standard, and had a sealed vapour barrier stapled in before the drywall went on. They are not under-insulated. They leak in a small number of identifiable places, and the owner's money is wasted anywhere else.
A house that sits empty from eight until six
This is the part that gets left out of insulation advice and it changes the ranking. A commuting household runs its house intermittently. The thermostat drops back after everybody leaves, the building coasts through the coldest, brightest part of the day with nothing being added, and then it has to come back up for the evening in about an hour.
A building that coasts and recovers is judged on how slowly it gives up what it has and how fast it takes heat back. Both of those are air-leakage questions far more than depth questions. Two houses with identical attic depth can behave completely differently on a setback schedule, and the difference is almost entirely whether the ceiling plane and the floor perimeter are sealed.
The order that fits a household nobody is home in
On the newer half: the band of framing where the floor sits on the foundation, then any floor that overhangs outdoor air at the back of the house, then the ceiling of the attached garage, then the sloped part of the bonus room ceiling. Four items, all reachable, none of them requiring a room to be emptied.
On the older half: the ceiling plane first because it is reachable from a hatch, then the rim and the top of the foundation wall, then the crawl space under whichever part of the house sits over one. Walls come last and only when the cladding is already off.
Which foam, and why the question is not a preference
Closed-cell runs about R-6 to R-7 per inch and becomes its own vapour barrier at around two inches, so it belongs anywhere cold, damp or in contact with concrete and steel. Open-cell runs about R-3.5 to R-3.8 per inch, costs less for the same volume and performs better acoustically, so it belongs in interior partitions and in generous cavities on the warm side of a vapour control layer. Putting the cheaper one where the expensive one belongs is the most common specification mistake we are asked to fix.
One company, start to finish
You are dealing with the contractor directly on residential spray foam insulation Coaldale. We quote the job, we schedule it, and our own installers do the work.
Residential Spray Foam Insulation Coaldale: Common Questions
My house is from 2006 and the attic is full. What is left to do? The four items listed above. On that stock the depth is already there and the leaks are at the floor perimeter, the cantilevers and the garage ceiling.
Does a setback thermostat change what I should insulate? It raises the value of sealing and lowers the value of extra depth. A house that recovers in an hour has a tight envelope, not a deep one.
Can the work happen while we are both at work? Say so when you enquire and we will plan the access and the re-entry time around it rather than discovering it on the day.
How much does residential spray foam insulation cost in Coaldale? It is priced per board foot over the sprayed area, so area times thickness sets it. The real variable in this town is which half of it your house is in, because removal and access on the older stock can exceed the foam.
How do I choose a residential spray foam contractor in Coaldale? Ask which four surfaces they would do first on a house of your age and why those four. A quote that proposes the same package for a 1952 house and a 2006 house has not looked at either.
Size the job with the R-value calculator, then get a free Coaldale quote. More on Residential Spray Foam Insulation Alberta province-wide.